Mission in Motion

Mission In Motion

Mission in Motion

Mission in Motion Initiative

Seton Hill is a Catholic institution influenced by the life and works of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and Setonian values. The Alumni Mission in Motion initiative is committed to furthering the traditions and mission of the institution through alumni based events and programming. These programs highlight the mission of Seton Hill University, the legacy of Elizabeth Ann Seton and Catholic social teachings for the vast alumni community. To learn more about this program, please contact Mary Ross Cox in the Alumni Relations Office or e-mail alumnirelations@setonhill.edu.

Read with Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni on the Life of Elizabeth Ann Seton

Join alumni across the country and read Joan Barthel's, American Saint: The Life of Elizabeth Seton. In this riveting biography of Elizabeth Seton critically acclaimed and bestselling author Joan Barthel tells the mesmerizing story of a woman whose life featured wealth and poverty, passion and sorrow, love and loss. Elizabeth was born into a prominent New York City family in 1774. Her father was the chief health officer for the Port of New York and she lived down the block from Alexander Hamilton. She danced at George Washington's sixty-fifth Birthday Ball wearing cream slippers, monogrammed.

Catholicism was illegal in New York when she was born; Catholic priests seen in the city were arrested, sometimes hung. When Elizabeth and her wealthy husband Will sailed to Italy in a doomed attempt to cure his tuberculosis, she and her family were quarantined in a damp dungeon. And when Elizabeth later became a Catholic, she was so scorned that people talked of burning down her house.

American Saint is the inspiring story of a brave woman who forged the way for the other women who followed and who made a name for herself in a world entirely ruled by men. Elizabeth resisted male clerical control of her religious order, as nuns are doing today, and the publication of her story could not be more timely. Maya Angelou has contributed the foreword.